A Proletarian Militia

Published:PravdaNo. 36, May 3 (April 20), 1917.

      Published according to the text inPravda.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 24,

      pages179-182.Translated:Isaacs BernardTranscription\Markup:B. BagginsandD. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      1999

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

OnApril 14 our paper[Pravda]published a report from a correspondent in Kanavino,
      Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia, to the effect that “a workers’
      militia paid for by the factory managements has been introduced
      at practically all the factories”.

Kanavinodistrict, our correspondent reports, has sixteen
      factories and about thirty thousand workers, not counting
      railway employees. The organisation of a workers’ militia paid
      for by the capitalists therefore embraces a considerable number
      of the largest enterprises in the locality.

Theorganisation of a workers’ militia to be paid for by the
      capitalists is a measure of tremendous—it will be no
      exaggeration to say, gigantic and decisive—importance,
      both practically and in principle. The revolution cannot be made
      safe, its gains cannot be assured, its further development isimpossible,until this measure has become general, until
      it is carried through all over the country.

Thebourgeois and landowner republicans, who turned republican
      after they saw that it was impossible to rule the peopleotherwise,are trying to establish a republic that
      would be as monarchical as possible; something like that in
      France, which Shchedrin called a republic without
      republicans.[1]

Atthe present time, when the landowners and capitalists have
      come to realise the strength of the revolutionary masses, the
      most important thing for them is tosafeguardthe most
      essential institutions of the old regime, to safeguard the old
      instruments of oppression: the police, the bureaucracy, the
      standing army. They are trying to reduce the “civil militia” to
      an institution of the old type, i.e., to small detachments of
      armed men standing apart from the peopleand as close as
      possible to the bourgeoisie and under the command of men from
      among the bourgeoisie.

Theminimum programme of the Social-Democrats calls for the
      replacement of the standing army by a universal arming of the
      people. Most of the official Social-Democrats in Europe and most
      of our own Menshevik leaders, however, have “forgotten” or put
      aside the Party’s programme, substituting chauvinism
      (“defencism”) for internationalism,reformismforrevolutionarytactics.

Yetnow of all times, at the present revolutionary moment, it is
      most urgent and essential that there be a universal arming of
      the people. To assert that, while we have a revolutionary army,
      there is no need to arm the proletariat, or that there would
      “not be enough” arms to go round, is mere deception and
      trickery. The thing is to begin organising a universal militia
      straight away, so that everyone should learn the use of arms
      even if there is “not enough” to go round, for it is not at all
      necessary that the people have enough weapons to arm
      everybody. The people must learn, one and all, how to use arms,
      they must belong, one and all, to the militia which is to
      replace the police and the standing army.

Theworkers do not want an army standing apart from the people;
      what they want is that the workers and soldiers shouldmergeinto a single militia consisting of all the
      people.

Failingthis, the apparatus of oppression will remain in force,
      ready today to serve Guchkov and his friends, the
      counter-revolutionary generals, and tomorrow Radko Dmitriev or
      some pretender to the throne and builder of a plebiscite
      monarchy.

Thecapitalists need a republic now, because they cannot
      “manage” the people otherwise. But what they need is a
      “parliamentary” republic, i.e., one where democracy would be
      limited to democraticelections, to the right of
      sending to parliament individuals who, as Marx aptly remarked,representthe people andoppressthe
      people.[2]

Theopportunists of contemporary Social-Democracy, who have
      substituted Scheidemann for Marx, have memorised the rule that
      parliamentarism “should be utilised” (which is absolutely
      correct), but have forgotten what Marx taught concerning
      proletarian democracy asdistinguishedfrom bourgeois
      parliamentarism.

Thepeople need a republic in order to educate the masses in the
      methods of democracy. We neednot onlyrepresentation
      along democratic lines, but the building of the entire state
      administration from the bottom up by the masses themselves,
      their effective participation in all of life’s steps, their
      active role in the administration.Replacementof the
      old organs of oppression, the police, the bureaucracy, the
      standing army, by a universal arming of the people, by a really
      universal militia, is the only way to guarantee the country a
      maximum of security against the restoration of the monarchy and
      toenableit to go forward firmly, systematically and
      resolutely towards socialism, not by “introducing” it from
      above, but by raising the vast mass of proletarians and
      semi-proletarians to the art of state administration, to the use
      of thewholestate power.

Publicservice through a police standing above the people,
      through bureaucrats, who are the most faithful servants of the
      bourgeoisie, and through a standing army under the command of
      landowners and capitalists—that is the ideal of the
      bourgeois parliamentary republic, which is out to perpetuate the
      rule of Capital.

Publicservice through a really universal people’s militia,
      composed of men and women, a militia capable partly of replacing
      the bureaucrats—this, combined with the principle of
      elective office and displaceability of all public officers, with
      payment for their work according to proletarian, not
      “master-class”, bourgeois standards, is the ideal of the working
      class.

Thisideal has not only become a part of our programme, it has
      not only won a place in the history of the labour movement in
      the West, namely, in the experience of theParis
      Commune; it has not only been evaluated, stressed, explained
      and recommended by Marx, but it was actually put into practice
      by the Russian workers in the years 1905 and 1917.

TheSoviets of Workers’ Deputies, in point of significance, in
      point of the type of government they create, are institutions of
      precisely that kind of democracy which does away with the old
      organs of oppression, and takes the road of a universal militia.

Buthow can the militia be made universal when the proletarians
      and semi-proletarians are herded in the factories,crushed by
      unbearable labour for the landowners and the capitalists?

Thereis only one way: the workers’ militia must be paid for by
      the capitalists.

Thecapitalists must pay the workers for the hours and days
      which they give to public service.

Thisreliable method is being adopted by the working masses
      themselves. The example of the Nizhni-Novgorod workers should
      become a model for all Russia.

Comradeworkers, make the peasants and the rest of the people
      see the need for a universal militia in place of the police and
      the old bureaucracy! Introduce such and only such a militia!
      Introduce it through the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, through
      the Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies, through the organs of local
      self-government that fall into the hands of the working
      class. Do not under any circumstances be content with a
      bourgeois militia. Draw the women into public service on an
      equal footing with the men. See to it that the capitalists pay
      the workers for days devoted to public service in the militia!

Learnthe methods of democracy by actual practice, right now, on
      your own, from the bottom up—rouse the masses to effective,
      immediate, universal participation in government—this and
      this alone will assure the full triumph of the revolution and
      its unswerving, purposeful and systematic advance.

[1]Thereference is to Saltykov-Shchedrin’s comments on France
      contained in his sketches Abroad.

Thisinterview was
      published in the “Correspondence” column of the Finnish
      Social-Democratic newspaperTyömies(Worker) No. 122, for May 8, 1917, under the heading “Interview
      with Russian Revolutionaries”, to which the correspondent
      supplied the following introduction:

“Ifound Comrade Lenin, of whom so much has been spoken lately
      in Russia, in the editorial office ofPravda.
      Pressed for time, Lenin agreed to speak only briefly. Nevertheless, he
      answered my questions with the following statement.”

Työmieswas published in Helsingfors from March 1895 to 1918.

[2]SeeMarx and Engels,Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1962,
pp. 520–21.